(Image: Likud Anglos)

Lending legitimacy to the $13 all-expenses-included trip on July 6, the minister, Gideon Sa’ar, will guide the tourists to Hebron for a “mini-rally in support of the Jewish community of Hevron and Jewish settlement in all the Land of Israel!” Separately, Sa’ar is also spearheading a government-funded program for Israeli children to take field trips to the West Bank.

(Image: Likud Anglo)

The upcoming settler experience day-trip comes as part of series of programs by “Likud Anglos” that bring Israelis to East Jerusalem and the West Bank in order to build support for a greater Israel. Last year the group organized “Salute to Judea & Samaria tour 2011.” Molding future settlers, the rightists funneled tourists to outposts for “sightseeing of regional mountains and vineyards,” and a “solidarity rally in the [illegal] Settlement of Migron with MKs and other public figures.”

Yet, focus on the Jewish expansion into the West Bank is only one aspect of the Likud Anglos’ work. The organization also proselytizes Revionist Zionism with Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin as the group’s political afflatus:

Likud Anglos is an independent group of dedicated Olim from English-speaking countries who identify with the goals and history of the Revizionist-Zionist movement founded and led by Zionist visionary Ze’ev Jabotinsky and then his sucessor the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin. [sic]

We believe that ‘Anglos,’ who have backgrounds from advanced democratic cultures, have a special role to play in the Likud and the State of Israel. We therefore aim to provide our membership with an influential voice inside the Likud and Israel’s governing institutions.

13 Responses

“We believe that ‘Anglos,’ who have backgrounds from advanced democratic cultures”, this clearly poses special challenges, how to deprogram all deleterious effects of that background. I guess trips to Hebron and Migron can be viewed as re-education.

We know what happens when people fro “advanced cultures” are not properly re-educated. They invade cities and wreck mayhem like a smallish group of slowly walking girls in traditional Palestinian dress (except for male head scarfs) that invaded “Arab-rein” sector of Hevron to confuse the defenders: Anarchists invade Hebron link to youtube.com

(It makes me think of my favorite paper, the NYT. Wasn’t this the kind of revealing glimpse into Israeli culture that Ethan Bronner was supposed to bring us, back in his Jerusalem bureau days? Didn’t the ombudsman claim that it was exactly his “close ties” with Israeli society that would make possible these kinds of penetrating insights? I guess he just never could find the time. And come to think of it, his replacement, Jodi Rudoren, is also keeping her head well down.)

You antisemite! There are no Jews-only roads in the West Bank. They’re Israeli-only. The fact that all Israelis in the West Bank are Jewish doesn’t matter, because if an Arab from Haifa wants to drive on those roads, he can.

Now. If a foreign university, NGO, whatever, boycotts goods made in the West Bank, then you’re authorized to confuse Israeli with Jew, and to call the move antisemitic, even if your boycott covers the production of Israeli Arabs who have moved to the West Bank. And if a Palestinian law prescribes death for those who sell land to Israelis, you’re also authorized to conflate Israeli and Jew and decry the antisemitism of the Palestinian authority.

So my advice to you is that you read the rules before saying “Israeli” or “Jewish.”

“World Likud”?
“Likud Anglos”?
“mini-rally in support of … Jewish settlement in all the Land of Israel”
I do wish ordinary people realised that while Hamas has backtracked on its charter and recognizes Israel, Yahoo’s party has not given up its aim of the total destruction of Palestine. Who’s “delegitimising” who?

Trips to Hebron (or, preferably, Hevron, and never to al-Khalil) can have a very good educational/re-educational effect, but they have to be designed with care or the effect is quite opposite.

Example 1: Minister of Education of Sweden visits Hebron. He was the guy who instructed Swedish vote against accession of PA to Unesco allegedly against the wishes of his Prime Minister — Sweden, like Israel, has a coalition government. PR disaster ensues.

Example 2: recent visit by Anglo “anarchist” girls.

Common theme is that the visits were not coordinated by certain Mr. Wilder. But a well coordinated visit can be as blissful as the love affair of Katisha and Ko-Ko in Mikado:

KATISHA. And you won’t hate me because I ‘m just a little tey weeney wee bit bloodthirsty, will you ?

Ko Ko. Hate you? Oh, Katisha! is there not beauty even in bloodthirstiness?

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